Psst! Your Human Side is Showing
by MyownlilfantaC
Summary: After a long day at work John is both dismayed and concerned by the relationship drama that unfolds in his living room and gives him an unpleasant insight into Sherlock's troubled past. OneShot.


**Pssst! Your Human Side is Showing**

It was a gray rainy day that greeted John when he left work that evening, an accurate reflection of his mood after the tortuously long day he'd had. When he reached the flat, his legs carried him reluctantly up the seventeen steps, then around the kitchen so he could make himself some tea and finally to the couch where he sat down with a greatful grunt, his cup of tea in one hand and the newspaper in the other.

Before he'd even had a chance to open his paper, the doorbell rang shrilly and, with a sigh, he pushed himself back up on to his aching legs, hearing them groan almost as loudly as the old wooden steps he stomped down to answer the door.

"Hello, Mycroft." He greeted, somehow feeling both surprise and unsurprised by the man's presence. He stood aside and the elder Holmes brother entered with a polite nod. "Sherlock isn't home."

"When was the last time you saw him?" Myrcroft voice was low, subdued, umbrella twirling in his hands absently.

The question was oddly to the point and John realized that Mycroft seemed to have already known Sherlock wasn't in. He looked carefully at the taller man, trying to find something out of place that might give him a clue as to what the taller man was up to. But he looked the same as always; impeccably dressed, not a hair out of place. Only the tone of voice Mycroft had used gave away that something was not right.

"Last night." He answered at last, "Just after dinner." His frown deepened when his answer caused Mycroft's lips to thin. "That isn't exactly unusual for him."

"No. What is unusual is him not responding to my texts. Far more unusual, however, is that he is not responding to my phone calls."

"Sherlock ignores my calls all the time."

He was pinned with a hard, unreadable look. "He doesn't ignore mine."

Mycroft's stare was strangely intense and John had to force himself to keep eye contact. "Let me guess. You have an _agreement_."

The other smiled shrewdly. "Yes."

"Well..." John said leading the way up the stairs to the flat and thinking back over his own day to see if it held anything useful to placate the man behind him. The more he thought about it though, the deeper his frown became. "That _is_ weird, actually."

"What is?"

"Sherlock hasn't texted me all day either." His reply was as absent as his mind as he phone from his pocket to double check that his memory was not failing him. He scrolled through the day's messages quickly, only two, and both of them were from Sarah.

"He normally does?"

"At least a few times. Sometimes incessantly." Wriggling fingers of worry were tickling at his insides as he stared down at his phone like it was lying to him. Sherlock _always_ texted him. "Hang on, let me try him."

Mycroft arched a brow but said nothing, looking about the living room of their small flat with a disinterested gaze.

Six times it rang before John gave up. "Nothing." No sooner had he hung up then Lestrade's number appeared on the screen and he sighed a 'Hello?' into his end of the phone.

"John! Can you please tell Sherlock to stop ignoring me, I really need his help with a case. I'm on my way to your flat-"

"Lestrade-"

"-I'll be there in less than five minutes-"

"Greg-"

"-Tell Sherlock I've got a good one for him!"

The line went dead when Lestrade hung up. "Shit."

"Case?" Mycroft asked.

He grunted to the affirmative and then rubbed at his eyes. That was now Sherlock's third favorite person to pester with texts during the day that could not get a hold of the man. He looked back over to Mycroft but the government official was paying him no mind, staring down at his phone. "Look, I really don't think we need to worry just yet." He attempted to console.

Mycroft merely shook his head and placed his phone back in his breast pocket. "John, you know Sherlock very well, and I know that you are, for whatever reason, the only person my brother has allowed to get this close. However-"

"What? How do you know that?" John asked, feeling blindside by the statement and blinking stupidly.

Mycroft paused and smirked. "Because I've known Sherlock his whole life. Because of the way he talks about you."

"He talks about me?" He couldn't help but ask. He became aware of a mixture of dread and pride swelling in his chest and decided not to _deduce_ what that might mean.

Mycroft's smirk slipped away. "Does that surprise you?"

"To be perfectly honest, yes." John chuckled. "Good things, I hope."

"Always. He never has anything bad to say about you."

John felt his chest puff out a bit, "Really? Well, that's nice to hear. I was under the impression that he thought I was a blundering idiot."

Mycroft took a seat in the chair John usually favored and so John gladly reclaimed his spot on the sofa.

"You really don't know what you mean to him, do you?" The elder Holmes murmured, seeming to be speaking more to himself. He heaved a great sigh, "Well, I shouldn't be surprised, Sherlock tries so hard to hide anything about himself that could be considered even remotely human."

"Why is that?" John asked at once, jumping at the chance to learn something new about his secretive flat mate. "Has he just always been that way?" He grinned as he pictured a five year old Sherlock dusting kitchenware for his family members' fingerprints.

"No." Mycroft was gazing keenly at the handle of his umbrella, eyes distant. "He wasn't always like..." Suddenly the man clamped his jaw shut, seeming to just become aware of what he was saying. His eyes turned wide and guarded as he looked up at John as if the doctor had pulled the words from his unwilling mouth.

Such a look easily stirred the little hairs on the back of John's neck uncomfortably and, although Mycroft hadn't really said anything revealing, John felt as if he'd gotten to peek through the keyhole of the door to Sherlock's past and caught a glimpse of something dark and sinister.

An uncomfortable silence swelled in the small room and lingered unpleasantly until Lestrade suddenly burst through the door.

"Right!" The detective nearly shouted in his excitement. "Have I got a head scratcher for you-" He faltered upon realizing the room into which he had just walked did not contain Sherlock Holmes. "Where's-"

"I tried to tell you on the phone." John said, "He's not here."

"Well, where is he?" Lestrade cried, wrenching his phone from his pocket.

"We don't know." Mycroft answered in a gentle tone of voice that somehow managed to grab Lestrade's attention _and_ convey that there was something to be concerned about behind the words.

John sighed, feeling as if Mycroft was being a bit dramatic.

And now Lestrade was starting to look worried as well. "You haven't heard from him since...?"

"Yesterday."

The detective blinked. "Either of you?"

John regained his feet, wanting to get the situation under control a bit more. "Look, I _really_ don't think-"

He stopped abruptly when he heard someone thunder up the stairs, taking two at a time. When the person appeared in the doorway John felt his jaw drop and Mycroft surged to his feet, suddenly looking furious.

"Where the _hell_ have you been?"

John was still trying to process the state of his flatmate. Sherlock was wearing a white t shirt and jeans that were too big and hanging low on his slender hips. Clearly, they were not his clothes; his hair was wet like he'd just showered, making it look longer than normal as it hung around his face in waves instead of curls. The most alarming thing, though, was the white bandage wrapped from his elbow to the palm of his hand and, upon closer inspection, the thin line of red already soaking through the new bandage.

"What the hell happened to you?" Lestrade cried, eying the man up and down.

Sherlock's skin was alarmingly pale, ever more than usual, and his blue eyes stabbed at the air around him but didn't really appear to see anything. The man hovered in the doorway a second longer, blinked once and made for his room without answering any of their questions.

"Sherlock?" John called after him, watching the man's progress down the hall and now feeling _very_ concerned because Sherlock seemed to be having a difficult time walking and was using his undamaged arm to steady himself against the wall as he moved.

"Sherlock!" He called again.

And again, he was ignored.

Suddenly, Mycroft's voice boomed around the flat, making both John and Lestrade jump.

"SHERLOCK HOLMES!"

The consulting detective stopped dead in his tracks, his shoulders bunching up around his ears, and slowly turned on the spot to face his brother.

"Are you alright?" John managed to ask after the shock of seeing Sherlock obey his sibling so readily. The other merely leaned his shoulder into the wall and sent him a glance without answering, which, for him, was a resounding '_No_.'.

"Tell me what happened." Mycroft ordered, his voice now a normal volume. He stared down his younger brother until Sherlock broke eye contact, swallowed a few times and then cleared his throat.

"I ran into Daniel."

Looking to Mycroft to see if those four words meant something deeper than what they seemed, John saw the man close his eyes and pull a long breath through his nose, likely to calm a sudden flare in temper, judging by the vein throbbing in his temple.

"I see." When Mycroft opened his eyes again, he seemed a bit more calm. "Just the arm then?"

And, as he frequently did when witnessing a conversation between the two Holmes men, John felt incredibly confused about what was _not_ being said and was annoyed to realize he was missing something big.

Sherlock merely clenched his teeth and shook his head minutely.

"Where else?"

"It doesn't matter, Mycroft!" Sherlock suddenly exploded, causing Lestrade to take a step away from him in alarm.

"Uh, look, maybe I'll just-"

"Why _are_ you here?" Sherlock drawled, pinning him with a sharp glare as the inspector tried to back out the doorway.

"I have a case that's, well, never mind..."

"Who the _hell_ is Daniel?" John managed to ask, finally finding his voice in the bizarre chaos of the room. "And did he do that to you?"

"Daniel," Mycroft answered with thinly veiled contempt, "If an old..._friend_ of Sherlock's."

"Friend." John echoed, knowing there was more to that then Mycroft had implied. He turned to look at Sherlock. "You told me you didn't have any friends."

"He isn't a friend, he's..." His dark head shook from side to side, wavy black locks skittering around the edges of his pale face as he failed to come up with a word to accurately describe this other man.

"Well..." said Lestrade, looking torn between urge to flee and a desire to stay out of fierce curiosity.

When another set of footsteps took to the stiars, John thought it might be Mrs. Hudson, until he glanced over at Sherlock and saw him tense like someone had just pulled a gun on him. Shortly thereafter a man appeared in the doorway; a man with dark hair, green eyes and skin almost as pale as Sherlock's.

"Ahh, Daniel." Mycroft sneered with undisguised disdain, his nose wrinkling like he smelled something foul. "I should have known you'd follow him back here. It really has been a while."

"Not long enough." Daniel shot back.

John bristled, wondering if this stranger really had injured his friend.

Daniel's green eyes turned on Sherlock and immediately softened. "Sherlock-"

"Get out, Daniel." The consulting detective said calmly, not blinking, his back pressed to the wall.

"Sherlock, please-"

"GET OUT!" The younger Holmes roared with sudden, formidable and terrifying anger, his blue eyes flashing dangerously.

Mycroft stepped between his brother and Daniel, his own eyes glittering coolly like chips of ice. "Do, _please_, get out."

Daniel shot him an annoyed look. "I came here to speak with your brother, Mycroft. Not you."

"It appears as if he doesn't wish to speak with you." John felt the hairs on the back of his neck stir a second time. Mycroft's voice was like velvet sliding over steel and it gave him a glimpse of what Sherlock had always said his brother to be: A very dangerous man indeed. "Now, I suggest you leave him be or-"

"Yes, Mycroft, you have people that will pull off my fingernails with pliers and other nasty things."

"For starters."

"Look, I just want to _talk_."

"Oh, _now_ you want to talk?" Sherlock sneered, pushing away from the wall and sidestepping his brother. "Fine. Then we'll talk. About Cambridge."

Daniel's hands flew into the air. "Oh, _here_ we go!"

"You wanted to talk, so let's talk!"

"Don't you _dare_ act like you didn't play a part in that, Sherlock! It takes two to tango, my friend!"

The two of them were coming closer and closer and their voices were growing louder and more angry with every word until John wondered if he should try and intervene. A glance over at Lestrade showed the man to be both riveted and perturbed by this glimpse into the emotional side of Sherlock Holmes.

"Six years it's been since I've seen you, Sherlock and _I_ wasn't the one who suggested-"

"You didn't say no either!"

"Sop it!" Mycroft shouted.

The two of them stopped shouting but continued to glare at one another, breathing harshly.

"Daniel, get out. Sherlock-"

"I'm not going anywhere, Mycroft."

"Oh yes you are." Sherlock snarled, grabbing Daniel by the arm.

But Daniel wrenched his arm free and splayed a hand against Sherlock's chest, shoving him away. Unfazed, the consulting detective made a grab for him again and was met with a savage backhand to the face that sent him sprawling onto the floor. With a cry, John and Lestrade both leapt forward but were neither as fast or as close to their target as Sherlock. He swung his leg out with a vicious snarl, knocking Daniel's feet out from under him and sending the man crashing to the floor. Sherlock was on him instantly and had his long, pale fingers clamped firmly around Daniel's throat.

It took both Lestrade and John's combined effort to haul them apart and once they were separated, both men remained on the floor, chests heaving and eyes glittering.

John felt annoyance and alarm battling at the surface of his mind for control. "Alright, what the hell is going on?! And I don't want a Holmes answer, I want a _normal_, straight forward explanation!"

"Just trying to rid myself of a toxic relationship." Sherlock snarled in Daniel's direction, fueling John's annoyance.

The doctor pointed accusingly. "That is exactly the kind of answer I didn't want."

"You weren't so eager to be rid of me last night." Daniel muttered.

Lestrade's mouth fell open.

"Well, we all make mistakes."

"Yes but we don't all make the same mistake three times in one night, do we?"

John saw Lestrade cross his arms over his chest with a look on his face like he was watching a riveting drama on the television and was dying to know what was about to happen next and Sherlock and Daniel climbed slowly, cautiously, to their feet, their eyes never leaving one another out of sheer mistrust of what the other might do.

"So what then?" John asked, arms flying out to his sides, "Another arch enemy of yours? Shall I call the police?"

"Don't be stupid, John." Sherlock snapped. "Mycroft is here, he's much more effective than the police."

So he sat down on the sofa again in a huff, annoyance finally winning out over his concern.

"So what is this then?" Lestrade asked, waving his hand between them, desperate to know.

Sherlock and Daniel looked at one another as if to ask each other the same question, the anger suddenly draining from their frames.

"Like I said." Answered Sherlock quietly. "It was a mistake."

"I don't think you believe that."

"Believe whatever you wish, Daniel, it has no effect on me."

"I have physical evidence to the contrary." Daniel pulled up his shirt to reveal a spattering of bruises littering his torso like ink blotches on parchment. "Why do you keep coming back then? Hmm?"

"I didn't seek you out, we met out of chance!"

"Oh knock it off, Sherlock!" Daniel cried, already angry again. His green eyes sought out John, addressing him for the first time. "Doctor Watson is a prime example of what I was referring to last night."

Suddenly Sherlock's eyes flashed dangerously, darkening like the sky in a gathering storm. "I'm only going to say this once more. _Get_. _Out_."

Mycroft was staring at his brother with an unreadable expression but remained quiet and John was feeling more lost than ever.

"Struck a nerve there, didn't I?" Daniel smirked. He took a step closer to Sherlock, seemingly surprised when the shorter man held his ground. "Fine."

Daniel's head ducked down at the same time his large hands darted out and gripped Sherlock's upper arms to hold him in place. Their lips met, Sherlock was shoved back into the wall and Daniel forced his way into the detective's mouth without meeting much resistance; only when Daniel released him and stepped away did Sherlock become tense.

"Until next time, then."

"There won't _be_ a next time."

Daniel just nodded with a smirk as he left the flat. "Right." Green eyes darted over his shoulder, "Keep the jeans."

In the ensuing silence, John was glad he was already sitting down as his brain tried to process what he'd just witnessed. Lestrade was still standing and had a hand over his mouth as if he couldn't believe the twisted ending to the story and Mycroft looked rather tired.

Eventually, John's eyes sought those of his flat mate just as Sherlock's tongue darted out to wet his lips.

To wet them or to taste them? He found himself wondering.

"Sherlock, don't ever ignore my phone calls again." Mycroft chastised mildly.

"I didn't ignore you my phone got...broken." Sherlock seemed to be regaining his senses and pushed himself away from the wall on unsteady legs.

"Well, that was uh..." Lestrade said, scratching at the back of his head, eyes wide. "Yeah, alright. See you all later then."

If he wasn't mistaken, John was sure he saw a brief smile flit across Sherlock's face as Greg fled the flat, but then it was gone, as was the man himself as he disappeared into his room.

Out of having nothing better to do with his hands, but needing to do _something_ with them all the same, John leaned forward to grab his ice cold cup of tea and stared expectantly up at Mycroft, the only person he was sure would give him anything even close to an explanation for the scene he'd just witnessed.

"My brother, Dr. Watson, is a peculiar man."

John spluttered.

"He isn't as heartless as he would like people to believe and it is rare for him to love someone." Here he looked up from the floor and fixed John with a knowing look, "Well, rare for him to love in a way that goes beyond a platonic relationship. In fact, Daniel is the only person, I think, that has ever captured Sherlock's interest in such a way and I wouldn't be surprised if the same where true for Daniel. They are...very much alike, those two. It is almost eerie." The older Holmes glanced at his watch. "The problem with someone like Sherlock and Daniel meeting one another is their emotions tend to come out all at once. A ferocious, raging mess of feelings neither of them knows how to handle." He smiled briefly. "And what do men turn to when they feel out of control?"

"Violence."

"Violence." Mycroft echoed. "Those two in particular always seem to turn to it a bit prematurely; so much so that I once worried that was the basis for their relationship. When my brother used the word 'toxic' to define their connection, I could not think of a more suitable word." He walked to the door to leave, turning back to face John once more. "If you get wind of Daniel again," Mycroft's smile was sweet and terrifying, "Do please call me."

He left without another word and only when John heard to door close downstairs did he release the breath he was holding. He went to reheat his tea and was coming back into the living room just as Sherlock was, now wearing his own black pajama pants and a gray t shirt. John reclaimed his spot on the couch and watched as Sherlock paused and then walked over to sit down beside him, so close that their sides pressed together.

Unsure of how to handle this unusual move from his flat mate, John opted to ignore it completely. "How's your arm?"

"Hurts."

John turned on the television. "How'd it happen?"

"Punched his mirror."

He watched the figures on the telly without really seeing them. If he didn't know any better, he'd have thought that Sherlock's sullen, quiet tone might have something to do with Daniel. To a normal person such as John, what he'd seen tonight had seemed like a one night stand with an ex that exploded into a disastrous, violent breakup. Of course, that would mean that Sherlock Holmes, of all people, had had something akin to a normal, human relationship. To John, that seemed highly improbable. He must be seeing things wrong, there must be a piece of the puzzle missing.

"How many times have I told you," Sherlock muttered quietly beside him, his blue eyes fixed on the telly as well, "That after you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?"

Blinking rapidly, the doctor felt his stomach clench as Sherlock sunk into the couch and let his head fall onto John's shoulder with a heavy sigh. It was an expression unlike anything he had thought the man capable of and it gave him a sudden, shocking insight into what Mycroft had meant when he'd asked John if he truly had not realized what he meant to Sherlock.

He suddenly felt stronger, knowing that the world's only consulting detective was leaning on his shoulder because he needed somewhere safe to heal his mind and heart and he felt a sudden swell of pride knowing that, like Mycroft had pointed out, he was the only one Sherlock allowed so close.

* * *

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